How a Life Verse Can Bring Focus to Your Life

How a Life Verse Can Bring Focus to Your Life

I don’t think a lot about dying. It is a subject we all want to avoid, right? But the reality is that we all face it. The reality is that I might face it in 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 years or 40 years. We don’t know, do we?

And since we don’t know, it is easy to muddle through our lives letting each day pass much too freely. The days can slip away, even sneak into night without any true focus on what really matters.

It Is So Easy to Stay Distracted

How do we stay focused? How do we even know what to focus on?

I will be the very first to admit, I am uber easily distracted and really bad with follow through. If you give me too much to focus on, virtually nothing gets done well. Sure, I make it through a to do list here and there, but I am never REALLY effective at anything.

I need a lot of help in this area.

Most of you know that we ventured out to Montana to contemplate, evaluate and pray over the way we are doing life. One of the things I am hoping to accomplish while we are here is to narrow down all the voices in my head to just one true and simple voice.

I am not talking about Schizophrenic voices. I am talking about all the voices that tell me I need to be this, or I need to be that, or I am not enough if I don’t do this or make this. It’s seriously OVERWHELMING. Be a good mom (and who defines that?). Be a great wife (who defines that?). Be successful, be giving, be fit, be healthy, be clean, look good, be hospitable, political, intellectual, social, cook well, save money, recycle. I mean, the list goes on and on and on and before long, I feel schizophrenic, directionless, lost.

What Is A Life Verse?

I was working and praying over this a bit before we left and read Bill Hybils book, Simplify. He suggests choosing a life verse. This is one verse that you use to continually remind you of your purpose here on earth. When you get lost and you don’t know what decision to make, you remember your verse. When you are angry and you are about to handle it poorly, you go back to your verse.

He describes it this way:

A life verse is a short passage of Scripture that serves as a rallying cry to guide and focus the current season of your life, or your life as a whole. Carefully chosen after prayerful consideration, a life verse resonates with you in a personal way and serves as a lighthouse that continually guides you back to God’s mission and vision for your life.”

This wasn’t an easy task. How many amazing verses are there in the Bible?! It was hard to pick, but I do think I have come up with one that really resonates with me and who I am.

My Life Verse

After much thought, much prayer and a lot of early mornings to myself to contemplate, here is my verse.

“A new command I give you: Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

Again, I don’t think a lot about dying, but when I think about myself on my last day, the one thing that I want people to say about me is that I loved them well, that when they didn’t even love themselves, I loved them. I want my joy and my love for other people to be UNMISTAKABLE. And I can see myself lying there, waiting to meet my maker with a smile on my face and I can hear Him saying “Job well done. Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.”

That’s the life I want to live…..not just on my dying day, but every day and today.